U.S. Raptor Mortality Estimates from Wind Energy for the U.S.

Wallace Erickson

Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc.

Wallace P. Erickson has been a statistician with WEST since 1991. He currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer and a Senior Statistician. Wally’s leadership reflects the core values of WEST, providing clients with the highest level of specific scientific expertise, backed with the necessary statistical support that ensures excellent design and analysis to tackle difficult natural resource issues. He has a M.S in statistics from the University of Wyoming, and a B.S. in Mathematics/Statistics from Winona State University. Wally has 25 years of consulting experience related to the design and analysis of environmental and wildlife studies. His work at WEST has involved applying proper experimental design and appropriate statistical analysis methods for natural resource studies. He has worked with numerous government, industry and environmental organizations to help solve wildlife and other natural resource issues. He has been a project manager/lead statistician for over 300 studies at over 100 renewable energy projects in 35 states.He has studied modeled and estimated bird and bat mortality from many anthropogenic sources. An advocate for science based innovation; Wally has been involved in studies and modeling efforts evaluating the practical and effective use of remote sensing methodologies for detecting birds and bats. He has also studied methods used to reduce, minimize or mitigate impacts. He is an author/co-author on over 40 professional journal articles, book chapters or peer reviewed proceedings papers, and co-author of the 2nd edition of the book “Resource Selection by Animals”. He has presented over 50 papers/posters at national/regional meetings.

Abstract

The effect of wind energy on raptors, especially eagles, is the focus of extensive management and research efforts. We compiled data from over 146 comparable studies on avian fatality at over 85 wind energy facilities that represented about 15% of all wind energy currently in operation in the United States (US). We used advanced statistical analyses to estimate the annual rate of raptor fatalities and provide an understanding of how wind energy directly effects raptor populations. For all studies combined, we analyzed fatalities of 14 species of raptors. We broke the raptor estimates out into owls, vultures and all other raptors, because many studies that were included only reported standardized estimates for raptors after excluding owls and vultures. Owls comprised 1% of the carcass records, vultures 1.2%, and all other raptors 7.8%. However, the raw composition numbers likely overestimate actual fatality composition for raptors because raptors are more detectable than other smaller bird groups. After adjusting the observed fatality rates for sources of bias such as plot size, estimator type bias, carcass removal and searcher efficiency, we calculated the continent-wide rate of fatality as approximately 0.1 – 0.2 raptor fatalities per megawatt per year (excluding vultures and owls), or about 6,500 to 13500 raptor deaths per year. 90% of the raptor mortality occurs in the western U.S. (west of the Mississippi) where 81% of the MW have been installed. We estimate approximately 1000 to 2000 owl fatalities per year and 900 to 1850 vultures per year, resulting in an all inclusive raptor estimate of 0.13 to 0.26 per MW per year Three species are estimated to comprise 75% of the mortality (American kestrel: 3000 to 650, red-tailed hawk: 2000 to 4200, and turkey vulture (850 to 1800) , followed by sharp-shinned hawk (3% of total raptors), golden eagle (2%) , Swainson’s hawk (2%), northern harrier (2%), cooper’s hawk (1%), rough-legged hawk (1%), and ferruginous hawk (<1%).

Authors

Kimberly Bay (Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc.)
Shay Howlin (Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc.)
Wallace Erickson (Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc.)

Topic Areas

Raptors , U.S. - No Specific Region , Impact assessment , Land-based , Considering the effects of wind energy development in the larger context of our energy cho

Session

02 » Raptors and Wind Energy – Lessons Learned from Altamont, Estimating Origins and Fatalities (10:05 - Wednesday, 30th November, Interlocken Ballroom)

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